Literature and Painting: Blake's Romantic Paintings from Milton's Epic

This paper is an interdisciplinary research in the field of comparative literature. Blake, the English Romantic poet and painter, has expressed his own reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost in his paintings. Generally speaking, the Romantic poets under the influence of the dominant discourse of the French Revolution (1796) were interested in rebellious, unknown and mythical characters. Thus, Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost which was considered an anti-hero in the 18th century neoclassical poetry, became a hero, who preferred to rule in hell rather than to serve in heaven, for the Romantic poets. However, Blake, the poet, has a completely different reading from other Romantic poets. Despite his youth interest in the French Revolution, later on Blake became disappointed with the Revolution after witnessing the aftermath violence. For him, the only solution lied in the creative imagination and thought. Blake drew his painting of Milton’s Paradise Lost in such a spirit. These paintings tell us more about Blake rather than Milton’s epic.