“The Dead-Beat”, set in a front-line trench, and “Mental Cases”, set in a mental hospital, were both written by Wilfred Owen and describe situations involving people who have been mentally scarred by their experiences during the First World War. Pat Barker, in the novel “Regeneration”, suggests that Siegfried Sassoon aided Owen in the construction of [...]

There is certainly a change in mood and style between Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Experience’. Throughout the former of these Blake champions imagination as well as freedom and tolerance, ideas which formed the backbone of the French Revolution and the Romantic poet’s view of it. However in ‘Innocence’ Blake takes a much more prophetic [...]

Blake’s exploration of the two contrary states of the human soul, innocence and experience, often focus upon the theme of imagination. Through his “Songs of Innocence”, Blake champions the imagination, and shows how it should be free to bloom and flourish. On the other hand, in his “Songs of Experience”, Blake often portrays the repression [...]