William Blake was a religious man, yet did not believe in the common religious structure. Blake, also, did not believe in the God that most people believe in, but instead believed in a universal man. He believed that God was ideal and that God was this universal man, which man could become if he reached this goal. Blake was putting man and God on the same level, which many people disagreed with. His religion had a major influence on his writings, and can be seen throughout the two poems selected. Another thing Blake believed in was the two contrary states of the human soul, innocence and experience. Innocence was more ignorant, simple and sincere, while experience was mature and was what one accomplished when committing an immoral action. Blake …show more content…
These virtues are represented by God and man, “For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love/Is God, our father dear/Is Man, his child and care” (Blake 5-8). During times of blessings or sufferings, one would pray these virtues of delight. Blake writes that everyone, no matter religion, must respect these four virtues, because where these faiths dwell so does their God; “...In heathen, Turk, or Jew/Where Mercy, Love, & Pity dwell/There God is dwelling too” (Blake 18-20). William Blake wrote this poem to express his belief in the divinity of nature. If man was able to achieve all of these virtues, he would be ideal. By being divine, one could be considered innocent or in the state of innocence because there is no sin occurring amongst them, unlike in experience. People would be like God, who is one of the highest representations of innocence. The mood and tone of this poem set more examples of how the reader can view Blake’s incorporation of one of the states of human soul. The mood is graceful, while the tone is sincere but yet simplistic. This poem is a great representation of innocence, due to the way Blake states if we achieve the four virtues we will be more like …show more content…
This poem starts to degrade the virtues, instead of putting them on a higher pedestal. The poem discusses how there would be no virtues without certain things. For example, “Pity would be no more if we did not make somebody poor/And Mercy no more could be/If all were as happy as we” (Blake 133). Blake writes how the human brain could be compared to a tree that grows bitter things, such as humility, mystery and deceit. William Blake writes against “The Divine Image” in this poem, by criticizing the virtues and saying that they do no exist among either contrary state. When Blake discusses love in this poem he describes it as “selfish love” and readers may infer that love in experience is different than in innocence. Love in experience is found in everything no matter good or bad, fear and hostility are a few examples, while love occurring during innocence is only found in joyful things. This poem is a great example of Blake’s idea of experience because it has to do with actions and emotions that exist among people who have reached this human
William Blake is a literature genius. Most of his work speaks volume to the readers. Blake’s poem “The Mental Traveller” features a conflict between a male and female that all readers can relate to because of the lessons learned as you read. The poet William Blake isn’t just known for just writing. He was also a well-known painter and a printmaker. Blake is considered a seminal figure in the history of poetry. His poems are from the Romantic age (The end of the 18th Century). He was born in Soho, London, Great Britain. He was the third of seven children. Even though Blake was such an inspiration as a writer he only went to school just enough to read and write. According to Bloom’s critical views on William Blake; one of Blake’s inspirations was the Bible because he believed and belonged to the Moravian Church.
William Blake, was born in 1757 and died in 1827, created the poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell. Blake grew up in a poor environment. He studied to become an Engraver and a professional artist. His engraving took part in the Romanticism era. The Romanticism is a movement that developed during the 18th and early 19th century as a reaction against the Restoration and Enlightenment periods focuses on logic and reason. Blake’s poetry would focus on imagination. When Blake created his work, it gained very little attention. Blake’s artistic and poetic vision consists in his creations. Blake was against the Church of England because he thought the doctrines were being misused as a form of social control, it meant the people were taught to be passively obedient and accept oppression, poverty, and inequality. In Blake’s poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell, he shows that good requires evil in order to exist through imagery animals and man.
William Blake, an artist and poet, wrote on the dark and bright side of society. Growing up, Blake, at the age of four, thought he had seen God. With this said, his parents wanted to nurture his gift. His father, a very poor man, sent him to art school. Believe it or not, William Blake was a rebel.
Blake and Wordsworth both used their childhood experiences as a basis for their poetry. In the...
William Blake was an English printmaker, painter and poet. Although most of his works did not receive much recognition during his lifetime, they are today considered as an important figure in the poetry of visual arts and poetry. The glorification of children is one of the dominant features in William Blake's romantic feature of poetry (Blake, David and Harold, 32). His poems, together with other writers of his time, gave rise to the Romantic era as they mostly emphasized instinct, feeling and pleasure above mannerism and formality. Although most of his works are dedicated towards the future, most of their important and mostly thematic works are preoccupied with the glory and suffering from the past.
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.
Many Romantic works come from both the poet’s individual perceptions as well as the social consciousness of that era. “The Garden of Love” is no exception. This poem functions to brutally satirize both the oppression of the Church, which had a societal impact, and the urbanization of Lambeth, which had a personal impact on Blake’s life. As Blake has been known to do, he utilizes contrast to make the decay of his world blatant to the reader. Such contrasting is visible when the image of a life-giving garden decays into an image of death. This parallels the events that took place in Blake’s own life, when his rural home became swallowed up by urban sprawl.
The attitude that Blake brings to this poem is astounding. It shows how people feel during the 18th century. The tone usage throughout this poem displays how Blake along with many more feel about society and children. He uses many different emotions from the beginning to the end in his poem. He writes, “Could scarcely cry 'weep! '
“A Poison Tree”, and many other poems by William Blake are superb examples of the Romanticism movement through their focus on the situation and sins of the common man and use of nature as a major symbol and conceit. These highly romantic characteristics, along with his simplistic language, convey the romantic focus on mankind. This poem is easily understood by all who read it; however simplistic it is, the message of warning continues to stand true. Blake’s unique transitional writing style to the romantic literary movement made him one of the most influential men in literature in his day. His works aided in the popularization of Romanticism, which continues to be a large contributor to the art and literature of today.
William Blake was an influential English poet during the mid 18th and mid 19th centuries. He is still known as a prominent figure of the Romantic Period. In Blake’s early years as a teenager he began writing poetry, and in 1794 he published Songs of Experience. Songs of Experience is a collection of twenty-six poems, and it formed the second part of Songs of Innocence. One of these twenty-six poems in Songs of Experience is “The Angel”. In this poem, Blake used the maiden queen, the angel, and the dream as symbolic figures in order to portray this poem as a tragic love story. My interpretation of “The Angel” is how a person’s view of love can evolve over time.
According to The Visionary Company, “Blake’s God is ‘the real man, the imagination which liveth for ever’.” Blake believed that a God’s power could not exceed the most gifted man on earth. This belief is unmistakable in his poetry. He writes of outside forces created by God that a man can change. Some of these poems that have the religious features are The Lamb, The Tyger, London, and Jerusalem.
To illustrate, Blake displays imagery throughout his poem. These descriptions leave a picture in the reader’s mind. With great detail, the
The imagery of nature and humanity intermingling presents Blake's opinion on the inborn, innate harmony between nature and man. The persona of the poem goes on to express the `gentle streams beneath our feet' where `innocence and virtue meet'. This is where innocence dwells: synchronization with nature, not synchronization with industry where `babes are reduced to misery, fed with a cold usurous hand' as in the experienced version of `Holy Thursday'. The concept of the need for the individual's faithfulness to the laws of nature and what is natural is further reiterated in `the marriage of heaven and hell' in plate 10 where Blake states `where man is not, nature is barren'. The most elevated form of nature is human nature and when man resists and consciously negates nature, `nature' becomes `barren'. Blake goes on to say `sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires'. This harks back to `the Songs of Innocence' `A Cradle Song' where the `infants smiles are his own smiles'. The infant is free to act out its desires as it pleases. It is unbound, untainted. Blake's concern is for the pallid and repressed, subjugated future that awaits the children who must `nurse unacted desires' and emotions in this new world of industrialisation. Despairingly, this is restated again in `the mind-forg'd manacles' of `London'. The imagery of the lambs of the `Songs of Innocence' `Introduction' is developed in `the Chimney Sweeper' into the image of `Little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, that curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd'.
The speaker in this poem is portrayed as being immediately joyful, which represents Blake’s larger view of childhood as a state of joy that is untouched by humanity, and is untarnished by the experience of the real world. In contrast, Blake’s portrayal of adulthood is one of negativity and pessimism.... ... middle of paper ... ...
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