ABSTRACT
The logical contradiction is resolved in the concept of a continuum. The term is useful in literary theory because it provides an approach to the history of literature that parallels or duplicates the balance of opposites that is the characteristic differentia of literature itself. The author's concern here, however, is with the more abstract implications of the concept of a continuum. But how are we to define the role of time not only in the English continuum that begins c. It is clear that whatever pictorial significance the poem may have had to Blake, its essential importance to him was as direct social comment. It is also the moment of peripeteia in the drama enacted in London's internal temporal continuum. Blake's general concern in Experience is with the tragic consequences of the temporal process which deposits the immature among the mature, as the innocent, miserable poor of 'London' are deposited among and exploited by their rich and cruel oppressors.
