Throughout the Romantic period there was a surge in placing value on passion, feeling and reason as a form of decision making. The ideas surrounding the works of William Blake’s London and Robert Burns’ The Fornicator prove to readers that an individual need not have proper education in order to understand and change the world around them. The use of passion and perception as a form of reasoning, in opposition to rationalism, helped to inspire the masses into political upheaval and change. In contrast to Blake, Burns forces readers to look beyond what is seen on the surface and question circumstances at a deeper level. The idea that vision alone is enough to evoke change within an individual is overlooked by Burns and replaced with the idea that vision and thought combined make for the soundest logic. These two opposing views helped individuals to form opinions regarding the government and ultimately resulted in the French Revolution.
During the Romantic period, the period of Blake and Burns’ poetry, politics and social ideas were changing. The National Assembly was in the process of accepting and approving the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” The Declaration would soon be approved by the National Assembly and disapproved by the Catholic Church. Romantics were learning to place emotional and sensory oriented experienced values above that of ideas expressed in rationalism. Charles Baudelaire said it best, “Romanticism is precisely situated neither by choice of subject nor exact truth, but in a way of feeling,” (3). Although the revolution was ultimately named the French Revolution, it was ecumenical.
Blake used poems such as London, to create an artificial emotion in readers which exhibited the feeling associated with romanticism. This artificial emotion which Blake is able to evoke encourages readers to feel for the so called victim of society. The victim of society is traditionally an individual who has been cast down from social grace and must struggle to survive in an unforgiving society. In London, published in 1794, Blake uses the first person to make readers conscious of their surroundings. Blake begins the poem saying “I wander thro’ each charter’d street/Near where the charter’d Thames does flow” (179). The repetition of chartered draws the readers’ attention to the word and thus evokes a feeling of confinement and restriction under the government. Blake goes on to use a graphic visual image to emphasize his views of the world, stating “And the hapless Soldiers sigh/Runs in blood down Palace walls” (179). Readers are encouraged to open their eyes to the world around them and take in that which they see. According to Blake, readers should feel so moved by that which they view physically and the feelings these images evoke, that they have no choice but to act.
Blake goes on to use sexual references to express his ideas of the times political environment. This connection is made to bring forth the vulgarity which can be found in prostitution and politics, a rather cunning suggestion. Blake says “But most thro’ midnight streets I hear/How the youthful Harlots curse/Blasts the new-born Infants tear/And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse” (179). In this stanza, Blake focuses on sexual impunities and their effects on society. Blake has already shown the streets of London to be filled with filth, but what could be worse than a curse upon our new born children? Blake’s references encourage the masses to rise up and demand change within their cities. Blake says “How the Chimney-sweepers cry/Every blackning Church appalls” (179). Here Blake is showing that as the victim within society is crying for help and expressing the woes of his struggles, the church is turning a blind eye and is appalled by the dirty homeless child. Readers are supposed to feel a raw emotional connection to the child calling for help. This emotion is used to cause a surge which results in the uprising of the people and ultimately the French Revolution.
Much like Blake, Robert Burns, a Scotsman, presents the world from the eyes of a victim of society. Burns shows readers the hypocrisy of the society everyone is living in and encourages one to think about their actions in relation to their perceptions. Although Blake and Burns write during the same time period, their poetry is nearly in contradiction to each other in that Blake believes in evoking raw feelings in order to move individuals to action, while Burns encourages readers to look beyond the surface and question morals on a deeper level.
Robert Burns writes The Fornicator in the first person and places the poem in a public realm, much like Blake. However, different from Blake, Burns writes The Fornicator less to encourage individuals to use their own perceptions but to make readers question the perceptions that they see. Rather than perceiving something as Blake suggests, Burns suggests that sight alone is not enough. Burns forces readers to look beyond what is seen on the surface and question circumstances at a deeper level. The idea that vision alone is enough to evoke change within an individual is overlooked by Burns and replaced with the idea that vision and thought combined make for the soundest logic.
In a different light from that seen in London, Burns expresses sexual impropriety as wrong only in some instances. Burns writes his poem of fornication while expressing a somewhat genuine love between two characters. He describes the love that is felt by harlots in opposition, by saying “Ye wenching blades who hireling jades/Have tipt you off blue-boram” (381). Here Burns is saying that there is a difference between love outside of marriage and prostitution. He is not entirely condoning either but has not shown disdain. Burns, again, is not calling for actions from his readers, but is encouraging readers to question that which they see.
One example of the varied views expressed by Blake and Burns can be clearly identified in their views of orthodox religion. Burns, rather than evoking thoughts of the church, places his characters physically within a church, “Before the Congregation wide/I pass’d the muster fairly” (381). Burns’ characters are atoning for their sin of fornication in front of the congregation. This social ostracizing is shown to be a hypocritical statement. Burns uses the final stanza of his poem to emphasize the idea that all people are “fornicators” or sinners. Both Blake and Burns use the church to show the hypocrisy found within churches during the Romantic era and also to place an emphasis on perceptions. Blake wants readers to see and act, while Burns wants readers to consider that sin and wrong doing is all in the eye of the beholder. Why such a vast difference between the two views? Blake’s poem is written to show individuals the injustice around them, while Burns poems are from the eyes of the sinner. The perception of the speaker, in Blake being the observer and in Burns being a criminal, allows readers to understand the position of the author himself.
However not all ideas found within the two poems are in contraction. The most prominent similarity between Blake and Burns is their joint belief in the idea of a fallen society. London focuses on the overall fall of the great city. The poem shows a society which is struggling to provide its people with the necessities. Burns too shows a fallen society in that he says all are fornicators. The similar belief that society has reached an all time low is often expressed in writings of the Romantic period. Use of sensory imagery is used by both Blake and Burns to allow readers to connect first hand with the writings. Blake ends lines 9 and 13 with “I hear” while including visual images of the streets to draw readers into the poem. Burns’ poetry emphasizes sight as well, while showing readers two individuals sitting before a congregation. Burns’ sinners are shown using visual imagery as sitting with shame, “my downcast eye by chance did spy/What made my lips to water” (381). The use of the primary senses in relation to how the world is perceived and how one interacts with the world is key to understanding poems of the Romantic period.
The use of passion and perception as a form of reasoning, in opposition to rationalism, helped to inspire the masses into political upheaval and change which manifested through the French Revolution. Writings such as those mentioned above by Blake and Burns, although at different ends of the spectrum, worked to provide the public with the knowledge and inspiration to act on feeling as a form of reasoning.
Works Cited
Benjamin, Walter. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire. Berlin, Germany: Belknap Press, 2006.
Damrosch, David and Kevin Dettmar, eds. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. United State: Pearson Education, Inc, 2006.
