Indeed, William Blake went on to be one of the most influential poets himself.
One man who influenced a number of the poets mentioned above, including William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley, is John Milton. Thomas Hardy and George Eliot were particularly influenced by the biography and poetry of Milton. However, William Blake is arguably the poet that Milton has inspired the most. He uses Milton as a character in his poem ‘Milton a Poem’, and he believed that he was Milton’s poetical son. Indeed, William Blake went on to be one of the most influential poets himself. Interestingly, Blake’s work was almost forgotten about after he passed away. Neglected for a generation, his reputation was transformed after the publication of ‘Life of William Blake’ and he was taken up by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, particularly, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Other poets he influenced include Countee Cullen, Harold Hart Crane, William Butler Yeats, and Sylvia Plath.