Blake lived and died in obscurity. He was misunderstood, misinterpreted and ignored for over hundred years. Today it is not uncommon to find Blake regarded as the greatest of the Romantic poets, or being placed with Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton. He wields a deep influence on the modern youth and mind. He has become the hero of the British and the American underground, the prophet of the Alternative Society, forerunner of Ginsberg, inspirer of Adrian Michell Crown Prince of the Anti-academic establishment. Blake is important to world literature for his historical position who defied reason in an age of rational philosophies and skepticism and glorified intuition and imagination. He is important to the world for his prophetic capacity and for power of raising humanity from darkness to light. His recent bibliography is replete with hundreds of entries, with almost as many scholars and critics engrossed in studies in different aspect of his life, genius and works. There has been a vast and rapid growth of Blake criticism in te twentieth century. In this volume Dr. Mishra makes it his chief objective to consider this great mass of Blake criticism, with all its diverse and conflicting claims, to draw a line of Blake development, to assign the factors responsible for the immense and unique rise in his position, his special relevance and tremendous appeal to the recent generations.
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