William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" can be seen as a manifesto of his ideas against institutionalized Christianity, as well as a satire. Anna Letitia Barbauld's "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven" can also be seen as an outspoken piece of literature, classified by some as a satire as well. There is reason to believe that, based on the criticism these poems received, the masses of the Romantic time period did not look at these works with open minds.

However, each poem received a good deal of negative attention, and probably caught the eye of a good deal of people. My question is this: did Blake and Barbauld write their poems just to let off some steam, or did they intentionally write their controversial poetry about taboo topics to get others to think about things in a different way"

These two poems so not seem similar at first...