Now Art Has Lost Its Mental Charms
Now Art Has Lost Its Mental Charms - meaning Summary
Art as Political Force
Blake casts art as a political and moral agency whose fate determines national destiny. An Angel prophesies that if Britain embraces the arts they will renew the nation and conquer war; if Britain rejects them, France will take up peaceful arts and supplant Britain. The poem links aesthetic cultivation to civic virtue and warns that neglecting imaginative culture invites foreign influence and moral decline.
Read Complete Analyses`Now Art has lost its mental charms France shall subdue the world in arms.' So spoke an Angel at my birth; Then said `Descend thou upon earth, Renew the Arts on Britain's shore, And France shall fall down and adore. With works of art their armies meet And War shall sink beneath thy feet. But if thy nation Arts refuse, And if they scorn the immortal Muse, France shall the arts of peace restore And save thee from the ungrateful shore.' Spirit who lov'st Britannia's Isle Round which the fiends of commerce smile --
Feel free to be first to leave comment.