William Blake’s “A Poison Tree” is a vengeful poem that demonstrates the importance of releasing your emotions. The author creates a scenario about an augmenting anger towards an enemy that continually grows, and it eventually grows beyond anger. Throughout the poem, the reader recognizes the hatred toward the adversary. The rage and loathe felt converts to a plot for revenge. He establishes the theme that suppressing your feelings can cause you to make irrational decisions. Blake uses a wide range of literary devices such as symbolism, rhyme scheme, form, imagery, and allusions to establish a moralistic tone in this narrative poem. The tone and mood of poems help with the understanding of them. In “A Poison Tree,” the author has a negative …show more content…
In the second stanza of “A Poison Tree,” it states, “And with soft deceitful wiles.” Although the poem is not meant to be soothing, the word soft creates a comforting feeling to the reader. Not to mention, the next two words, after soft, contradict it. Another example of imagery in the poem is in the third stanza; it states, “Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine.” The apple lured the foe in, and these two lines tell the reader that the apple is very appealing and enticing. In the last stanza, it conveys, “My foe outstretched beneath the tree.” This line creates a ghastly image for the reader. The author provides a clear description of the result of anger, and the outcome the speaker was seeking. William Blake has one allusion in “A Poison Tree.” Knowing Blake was a deeply religious man, I made the assumption that while reading the poem I would come across a biblical reference. The continued biblical references throughout The Songs of Innocence and Experience is strongly represented in “A Poison Tree” as the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. I presumed that the tree in the poem is the Tree of Knowledge from the story of Adam and Eve. I also assumed the apple that was eaten by the foe was the fruit Adam and Eve had eaten. Also, apples have been the fruit of
There are multiple examples of visual imagery in this poem. An example of a simile is “curled like a possum within the hollow trunk”. The effect this has is the way it creates an image for the reader to see how the man is sleeping. An example of personification is, “yet both belonged to the bush, and now are one”. The result this has is how it creates an emotion for the reader to feel
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is a phrase that has been uttered numerous times to children by their parents. This aphorism has been used to not only apply to books but also people. In The Black Walnut Tree by Mary Oliver, the speaker faces a conflict between the literal and figurative meaning of a tree in her yard. In the beginning of the poem, the mother and daughter “debate” selling the tree to “pay off their mortgage.” But with a shift from literal language to figurative language comes a symbolic representation of the tree, one that represents family heritage and their ancestors’ hard work.
For example, his use of negative imagery suggest that he has a drunk father. Hence in the first two lines of the poem. “ The whiskey on your breath
Humor and Irony are a unique combinations Collins displays in many of his poems, challenging the readers to interpret his work in different perspectives. In “Introduction to Poetry,” Collins offers a witty comparison between the definition of poetry and various other experiments. He asks the reader to “hold [the poem] up to the light/ like a color slide” (1-3), “press an ear against its hive” (4), “drop a mouse into a poem” (5), “walk inside the poem's room” (7), and “waterski across the surface of a poem” (9-10). Rather than stiffly explaining the definition of a poem, he finds creative and humorous approaches to explain his methods of enjoying the poems, and promote the readers’ interest towards discovering the true meaning of poetry. Just as the surrounding would seem different through color slides, he asks the readers to see the world in diverse viewpoints while reading and writing poems. Moreover, by listening to poem’s hive, dropping a mouse, and walking inside its room, Collins encourages readers to discover the concealed depth of poetry. He comments ...
The diction of this poem influences the imagery with the tone of the words . They are used to convey the message of how it feels to not feel the spark of love
Indeed, the satirical tone of this poem suggests that the speaker is somewhat critical of his father. The whiskey smell, the roughness, the inconsiderate and reckless actions are under scrutiny. The mother's frowning countenance suggests she too is rather unhappy with the scene. However, the winning tone of the poem is the light and comical one.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Dickinson tucks away a series of morose words in every line with the exception of line four. One must first examine the word choice of the first word and the first line. The use of the word “Apparently” creates a standard for irony and sardonicism that is seen throughout the poem. The scenario constructed leads the audience to presuppose that an entity such as the flower should necessarily face such perils. When in fact the connotative effect is the exact opposite. If one continues down the poem to the next line she projects human emotions upon the flower when she seemingly exclaims that it is a “happy” flower. This provides an additional example of embedded irony in that the plant is being fraught with challenges yet it is happy. The projection also depicts human kinds adept ability ...
The poem “A Poison Tree” by William Blake and the story, “The Cask of Amontillado” written by Edgar Allan Poe writes about revenge. Overall both the poem and the short story share how they developed the overall theme, and to express the act, each of the writings use dramatic irony and sensory
This is taken as the speaker allowed his wrath and anger to their foe grow and develop into a seed of revenge, illustrated as the apple on this tree grow with hate. The foe recognizes this apple as a tangible reincarnation of the speaker's desire for revenge and it is understood that through some manner this apple kills the foe and the speaker is glad that it has done so, showing no remorse. This is seen in the lines “In the morning I was glad to see;/ My foe outstretched beneath the tree”. The speaker's reaction to the death has an effect on the theme because although the speaker has killed someone he has no
The theme of the suffering innocent person, dying and being diseased, throws a dark light onto the London seen through the eyes of William Blake. He shows us his experiences, fears and hopes with passionate images and metaphors creating a sensibility against oppression hypocrisy. His words come alive and ask for changes in society, government and church. But they remind us also that the continued renewal of society begins with new ideas, imagination and new works in every area of human experience.
Blake had an uncanny ability to use his work to illustrate the unpleasant and often painful realities around him. His poetry consistently embodies an attitude of revolt against the abuse of class and power that appears guided by a unique brand of spirituality. His spiritual beliefs reached outside the boundaries of religious elites loyal to the monarchy. “He was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War “(E. P. Thompson). Concern with war and the blighting effects of the industrial revolution were displayed in much of his work.
The personification in “A Poison Tree” exists both as a means by which the poem's metaphors are revealed, supported, and as a way for Blake to forecast the greater illustration of the wrath. The wrath the speaker feels is not directly personified as a tree, but as something that grows slowly and bears fruit. In the opening stanza the speaker states, “My wrath did grow.” The speake...
The speaker seems as if he is trying to escape this horrendous beast, the reader can almost feel the panic and terror that the speaker seems to be going through. “Blake creates this effect by drawing on several poetic devices”(Furr).
The consistent pattern of metrical stresses in this stanza, along with the orderly rhyme scheme, and standard verse structure, reflect the mood of serenity, of humankind in harmony with Nature. It is a fine, hot day, `clear as fire', when the speaker comes to drink at the creek. Birdsong punctuates the still air, like the tinkling of broken glass. However, the term `frail' also suggests vulnerability in the presence of danger, and there are other intimations in this stanza of the drama that is about to unfold. Slithery sibilants, as in the words `glass', `grass' and `moss', hint at the existence of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden. As in a Greek tragedy, the intensity of expression in the poem invokes a proleptic tenseness, as yet unexplained.