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The Composite Art Of Blake's "Laughing Song", William Robert Warner

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

During the past five years, the literary critics have discovered William Blake, helping readers to understand clearly the various stages of development and the final form of the poet's entire mythology. And recent criticism has also clarified and expressed more systematically than earlier criticism certain features of Blake's total thought. Nevertheless, much recent criticism has hindered rather than helped the serious student of Blake's poetry.] Most critics treat Blake's poems as if they were only literary, completely avoiding discussion of their visual components. Yet, Blake clearly envisioned and intended that his reader view the poetry as a new form consisting …