By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Innocence is a theme that looms large in English poetry, especially since the age of Romanticism. However, poems about innocence can be found before the 1790s and the arrival of Romanticism into English poetry, so below we’ve ranged far and wide in English verse to collect some of the greatest poems about being innocence, about states of innocence, and related themes.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Previously, we’ve considered the best children’s poems which we think everyone should read. In this post, we turn our attention to the best poems about childhood – childhood, youth, and that innocent time when our whole lives stretch ahead of us like the beginning of a warm summer day full of promise (sigh)… These poems range from the seventeenth century to contemporary poetry – we hope you enjoy them.