blame a set of institutions or a system that enslaves for the citys woes; rather the victims help to make their own mind forged manacles, which he sees as being more powerful than real chains ever could be (sparknote).Harris (1969) says in his book Romanticism and the social order that Blake expounded a philosophy of brotherhood, not only between human beings, but between all living thingshe entirely rejected the empirical philosophy of Locke. The newspapers and cheap pamphlets of the time made these poets readily available to the growing middle classes, the artists could no longer rely on aristocratic patronage. Popularity among the new and powerful middle class audience became crucial, it also enabled the politicals and radicals to spread their own ideologies. The Government of the time increased the newspaper taxes so that by 1797 a newspaper cost four and a half pence meanwhile literary hacks and Grub Street writers produced popular potboilers for the masses. Blake of course published his own poems. Harris (1969).In conclusion then three very different poets, both could be argued to be political and social, however, Shelley seems to be more concerned with changing the political order, whilst Wordsworth seems to want to change the social order of society. The three poems, all written about London in the Romantic era, give us only a small insight into the varying political beliefs held by the three poets mentioned. As all three can be seen to take a political or social stance of varying degrees, it would seem that we would have to concur with Abrams that the romantic poets were centrally political and social....
