Romanticism And Symbolism In Poetry In William Blake And Baudelaire

Romanticism was a time in literature when poetry was based on having a deep appreciation of nature’s beauty and emphasizing a variety of aspects such as the individual, subjective, and the transcendental. It is a rejection of the commands of balance, idealization and rationality. Amongst some of the most renowned poets William Blake is one who stands out as he took his writings into a rebellious nature that was not common of his era. He began to alter the themes of Romantic poetry with other themes like anger and resentment. He is someone who was not widely supported during his time but can later be seen as influential towards symbolism and great symbolist poets like Charles Baudelaire. Blake and Baudelaire were considered rebellious poets …show more content…
They both refused to condemn to the norms of literary writings and took an alternate route to express themselves through symbols and different themes. Blake set out to create writings that would change the common thoughts of man and did so with the use of symbols to represent different political concepts. He introduced a whole new world of literary poetry that caused the reader to engage deeply in order to understand the concept of his works. Baudelaire had a more broad approach and although he had somewhat of the same goal as Blake, he incorporated many different styles of literature other than poetry to prove his points had value. Baudelaire questions everything around him and is determined for others to realize the freedom of expression they obtain without holding such high value on governmental order and obligations. Through Blake’s different experiences during the romanticism period you can evaluate the way much enlightenment thinkers began to view the world and their surroundings. Although many argued for legal rights and political representation, Blake and other Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Paine would prefer to see the elite monarchy overthrown. But later through the works of Baudelaire it is evident that such ideas had only began to surface during Blake’s era. Both Blake and Baudelaire are considered rebellious poets of their time but without such literary poets there to question what is considered to be a norm in poetry or other literary concepts without exploring the opposite side than there probably would have been little innovation and expansion in the freedom of speech every author, poet, critic etc. is allowed to obtain till this