Abstract

The central concern of this paper is to prove that Blake and Wordsworth, in spite of some revealing differences between them, essentially share the same world view. Before showing how this works, we first of all should discuss, however briefly, the main difference between them.The main difference between Blake and Wordsworth is perhaps discernible in the way they respond to Nature or the physical frame of things. Here, their remarks on each other would be quite illuminating. Though there is no evidence that they knew each other personally, there is concrete proof that they read some of one another's works and even commented on them. Three sources immediately come to mind in this regard: first, there is Samuel Palmer's anecdote that Wordsworth borrowed a copy of Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience from a friend that “he read and read and took … home to read again”; second, we have Blake's 1826 annotations to the poems of Wordsworth contained in Keynes' Nonesuch Edition of Blake; third, there is Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence.