A Poison Tree

“A Poison Tree” was written by William Blake and published in his collection of poetry in 1794, which combined his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience volumes (Kumar, Dharmender. “A Poison Tree by William Blake.” Poem Analysis, 3 Dec. 2015). In addition to writing poetry, Blake was also an artist specializing in painting, illustrating, and engraving. He wrote and worked during what has been labeled as the Romantic Period of English literature (1785-1832), so called because of its focus on the romance genre and reversion to medieval aesthetics and tropes. Blake is often grouped in with what was known as the “Big 6” poets of Romantic literature, sharing the spotlight with writers including William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. These six writers were originally the primary focus of Romantic literary studies, though academics have expanded research to other authors and continue to include new writers in the literary canon. Besides an idealization of the past, literary works from the Romantic period tend to focus on the inner workings of the mind and imagination, emotions and feeling, nature, the supernatural, and the human being as an individual, among other traits.