Proceeds of conference at Ningbo City, China, includes article on Social Reality in Blake’s poetry

BCP Education & Psychology is an Open Access, peer-reviewed conference series that aims to publish proceedings from conferences on the theories and methods in fields of Education & Psychology. Its most recent issue completed at the end of 2022 and made more widely available in January 2023, includes the proceedings from the 2022 International Conference on Culture, Education, Psychology and Communications (CEPC 2022) at Ningbo City, China.

The paper by Yilin Wang from Xiamen University is titled "The Revelation of Social Reality in the Poetry of William Blake". It provides historical context and focuses on Blake's political and social poetry, including "London" and "A Little Boy Lost". As Wang explains:

As one of the most outstanding representatives of the Pre-Romanticism poet in the 18th century English literature, William Blake lived through and witnessed an era of great political and social upheaval and transitional period: the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution which brought significant and essential impact on social and historical progress in England. Coming from the social injustices and the coverage of the dark side of industrial England, Blake caught the pulse of his times through his sharp and deep insight, condemned the oppression and exploitation derived from the authority, tyranny and church, and also called on the oppressed to shatter “the mind-forged manacles” come from the ruling class. In this paper, I want to introduce and interpret the revelation of social reality in the poetry of William Blake by analyzing some of Blake’s poems in terms of main ideas, rhetorical devices, and historical contexts which are underlay and concealed in his poetry deeply.

Yilin Wang - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3d07/52cff01e2b1ef706715e1ebe484149c0a6ca.pdf

Keywords: Blake, Romanticism, poetry, social reality, London, A Little Boy Lost