Blake reacted strongly against the emerging industrial, rational and scientific view of life and his works clearly suggest a more heroic and ideal reality, which was more truthful and valid than the world of everyday reality. This is evident for example in the poem London, where he expressed his sense of despair and disillusionment at the suffering of people in the city and the way that people were blind to true reality because of "…"mind-forged manacles " (Line 8) (Abrams 42) He also exposed the way that society treats the innocent in The Chimney Sweeper
He was alone, and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground or floated in the air. (Conrad 144) Conrad suggests that, unlike the romantic vision of the heroic human, once the strictures and norms of society are removed the true nature of the human heart is revealed
Imagination is central to the work of Blake. For Blake the power of the imagination enables us, To see the World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an Hour (Keynes 431) This view brings him more in line with modernism and postmodernism