If I had to choose one literary work to represent the spirit of Romanticism, a strong contender would have to be William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Although at the time of publication it went largely unnoticed, this subversive book was a child of the historical moment. Blake began its composition at the beginning of the French Revolution and published it in 1793. The tremors of revolution – not only political revolution, but also that huge change of sensibility that came to be known as Romanticism – vibrate through the work: “France, rend down thy dungeon…”; “O citizen of London, ...
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