All poets throughout history and the world have been influenced and inspired by the world that surrounds them, their political, social, historical and ideological context. Blake could be no exception and upon taking up the "Songs of Innocence and Experience", the reader finds themselves flung back in time, to the London of the 19th Century, the world of William Blake. An utterer of "seditious and treasonable expressions" and a political and social radical, Blake occupied the position of the marginalised, living in abject poverty for most of his adult life, for lack of a willing employer. Terrified of losing control over a nation in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, the Church and the authorities conspired together to dominate and indoctrinate, justifying cruelty and injustice. Blake recognised the oppression of the British people and was concerned with all that attempted to restrain man from following the desires of...