The Myth of childhood in English romantic poetry

The present thesis, entitled The Myth of Childhood in English Romantic Poetry,is a research on the status of the archetypal child in its textual expression in the poemsof two English romantic writers, William Blake and William Wordsworth. The startingpoint of the present study is our view of the romantic concern with childhood as animportant literary tradition, whose thematic elements and textual implications allow itsconsideration as a literary myth of childhood centred around the archetype of child andexpressed primarily in the poems from Songs of Innocence and of Experience by Blake,as well as The Prelude and Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of EarlyChildhood by Wordsworth.In the first chapter of our study, entitled The Rise and Consolidation of the Mythof Childhood in Literature, we have attempted at discussing the archetype of child andits literary implications, childhood as a literary myth and the archetypal child assaviour, and, finally, the literary representation of child and childhood in Englishliterature. The following chapter, English Romantic Movement and the Concern withthe Experience of Childhood, presents the rise and consolidation of English RomanticMovement, and discusses childhood as a romantic concern in English poetry. Our finalchapter, entitled English Romantic Poetry as Argument, discusses the voices ofinnocence and experience in William Blake?s poetry, and William Wordsworth?sconcern with the growing human mind, revealing the ways in which these two romanticwriters dealt with the myth of childhood as an important thematic aspect of their works.