Study of William Blake’s Poems of Experience
Most of William Blake’s poetry that I have studied has had a major
theme or themes such as religion or oppression and usually his poems
also use symbolism to get across the point. I am going to study
closer two poems: The Tiger and A Poison Tree.
The Tiger is a very famous poem and is one of the more popular poems
written by Blake. I feel that the poem is about religion, creation
and the French Revolution, which took place in France around the time,
that Blake was writing these poems. I think that the Tiger itself is
a personification of evil, which you could say is the French
Revolution as many Europeans thought that the revolution was an evil
thing. The animal, the Tiger is also a very strong, ferocious animal
that hunts its prey very well. Again there are connections with the
revolution, which was very strong and ferocious and did not stop until
it got what it wanted like a tiger doesn’t stop until it gets its
prey.
The poem starts of by saying that the Tiger is ‘burning’, which I
thinks means that the revolution is alive and burning. The word
burning gives a slow but steady feeling so that it makes the reader
think that the revolution is alive but it has not yet hit full force
and is just biding its time before it can make that crucial hit. The
first verse ends by asking a question ‘What immortal hand or eye could
frame thy fearful symmetry’. I think that this refers to how quickly
the revolution got out of control and who could possibly control it
after that. Many other countries joined in to help the king of France
but were they enough to stop the revolution?
Through the second, third and fourth verses Blake gives a very strong
image of the ‘Tiger’ being created possibly by God himself. Blake
uses phrases such as ‘sinews of thy heart’, which gives a feeling of a
very strong and unforgiving thing being produced. Then he moves on to
speak of what tools could have created the ‘Tiger’ and Blake mentions
tools such as a hammer, a furnace and an anvil which are all tools
used in forging metal and heavy industry such as that. This gives the
reader a sense of the ‘Tiger’ being very strong and tough. Also the
image of a furnace burning relates back to the revolution burning and
it makes me think of things which you don’t touch or go near as they
are very dangerous. This could be related to the dangerousness of the
In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, many of the poems correlate in numerous aspects. For example, The Chimney Sweeper is a key poem in both collections that portrays the soul of a child The Chimney Sweeper in Innocence vs. The Chimney Sweeper in Experience In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, many of the poems correlate in numerous aspects. For example, The Chimney Sweeper is a key poem in both collections that portrays the soul of a child with both a naïve and experienced persona. Blake uses the aspects of religion, light versus dark imagery, and the usage of the chimney sweeper itself to convey the similarities and differences of the figure in both poems. The Chimney Sweeper is an excellent example of how William Blake incorporated religion into his poetic works.
How does William Blake convey his anger in the poem London? The poem 'London' by William Blake, reflects his feelings upon the society that he was living in, and how desperately it needed help. Blake thought that all of the poverty and misfortune that was happening on the streets were caused by the political oppression in London. The.
In "London", William Blake brings to light a city overrun by poverty and hardship. Blake discards the common, glorifying view of London and replaces it with his idea of truth. London is nothing more but a city strapped by harsh economic times where Royalty and other venues of power have allowed morality and goodness to deteriorate so that suffering and poverty are all that exist. It is with the use of three distinct metaphors; "mind-forg'd manacles", "blackning Church", and "Marriage hearse", that Blake conveys the idea of a city that suffers from physical and psychological imprisonment, social oppression, and an unraveling moral society.
The Romantic period brought a new outlook on how people viewed the world. The fight for individual rights was a major cause for the sudden change. There were too many rules that held people back from being able to express themselves. Once they began to broaden their ideas and practice new motives whether it was political, or emotional, it brought freedom of expression. Many poets took the chance to enlighten their readers on their works. They would write in order to paint a picture and gave more detailed descriptions of the conscious mind. For these poets it brought many people to enjoy their freedom of speech and encouraged a new way of thinking.
William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757 to James and Catherine Blake. His father, James was a hosier (seller of legwear) in London. Blake had four brothers, James, John, Richard and Robert; and a sister named Catherine (Harris 5). Blake got along best with his younger brother, Robert as they shared an interest in art (Clarke 1). As a young boy, Blake claimed to have had visions of God, spirits, prophets and angels. When he was four he is claimed to have seen God’s head in his window. In his most famous vision, he saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree and a tree of angels when he was nine (“Early Years”). Though his parents believed he was lying, they took into consideration that their son was “different” and did not believe he would succeed in a traditional school setting (“Poets”). So Blake was home schooled by his mother until he was ten years old. Blake was constantly by himself as a boy “…to seek a world of the imagination without fear of recrimination by others” (Harris 21).
The Poems of William Blake What have you understood, from reading the poems of William Blake? William Blake, a late 18th century English Romantic poet uses traditional forms for his poetry in that he blends the ballad, the nursery rhyme and the hymn. The meaning he constructs from these forms however is far from traditional. His style was to express very complex ideas in very simple language and compressing a lot of deep meaning into often very short poems. Blake was a rebel and was over enjoyed when the French revolution liberated the repressed underclass.
During the British Romantic period, some writers used material from the Bible or imitated the Bible in style of writing or content. William Blake, a Romantic writer, engraver, and painter, believed that “the Bible was the greatest work of poetry ever written” (Barker 2004). The Bible influenced him throughout this life, specifically influencing both his writing and his art. There are many references to Biblical themes within his writing, and there are also many references to specific passages of Scripture (Barker 2004).
two entirely different worlds, but it is my belief that it is not the Lamb
The theme of authority is possibly the most important theme and the most popular theme concerning William Blake’s poetry. Blake explores authority in a variety of different ways particularly through religion, education and God. Blake was profoundly concerned with the concept of social justice. He was also profoundly a religious man. His dissenting background led him to view the power structures and legalism that surrounded religious establishments with distrust. He saw these as unwarranted controls over the freedom of the individual and contrary to the nature of a God of liberty. Figures such as the school master in the ‘schoolboy’, the parents in the ‘chimney sweeper’ poems, the guardians of the poor in the ‘Holy Thursday’, Ona’s father in ‘A Little girl lost’ and the priestly representatives of organised religion in many of the poems, are for Blake the embodiment of evil restriction.
“The Tyger” written by William Blake is a complex, highly controversial poem that requires much analysis. In 1789, Blake published a collection of poems called Songs of Innocence, and five years later he published “The Tyger” in another assortment of poems titled Songs of Experience. These two collections are now analyzed and published hand in hand. The poems in the Songs of Innocence are generally optimistic and possess childlike virtue. On the other hand, the Songs of Experience battles with the issue when “innocence is lost” (Gardner, web). Therefore uncovering the diction, syntax and tone of the poem will help analyze with this apparent loss of innocence.
The Poem Spring in Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. In Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake differentiates between being experienced and being innocent. In the poem "Spring," the speaker focuses on the coming of spring and the excitement surrounding it, which is emphasized by the trochaic meter of the poem. Everyone, including the animals and children, is joyful and getting ready for the new season, a season of rebirth and a new arrival of nature’s gifts.
Authors, William Wordsworth and William Blake convey different messages and themes in their poems, “The World is Too Much with Us” and “The Tyger” consecutively by using the different mechanics one needs to create poetry. Both poems are closely related since they portray different aspects of society but the message remains different. Wordsworth’s poem describes a conflict between nature and humanity, while Blake’s poem issues God’s creations of completely different creatures. In “The World is Too Much with Us,” we figure the theme to be exactly what the title suggests: Humans are so self-absorbed with other things such as materialism that there’s no time left for anything else. In “The Tyger” the theme revolves around the question of what the Creator (God) of this creature seems to be like and the nature of good vs. evil. Both poems arise with some problem or question which makes the reader attentive and think logically about the society.
syllables at the start of the foot (Ty - ger! Ty - ger!) introduce an
William Blake uses repetition, rhyming and imagery in his poem to help promote the idea that London, England is not the city that people dream that it is, the city itself can be a
Sociological criticism emphasizes the political, economic, and cultural aspects of literature, and one of its main focuses is evaluating writing from a Marxist perspective, which examines the writing in mostly political and economic fashion, including ideas such as communism and social inequality. The idea of class oppression is clearly represented in many of William Blake’s writings. Blake’s opposition to the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists is obvious in many of his poems. Blake’s ideology of an equalitarian society could be described in the sayings of Karl Marx. Marxist criticism explains the reasons behind Blake’s anger towards social inequality. Poems like “The Chimney Sweeper” and “London” illustrate Blake’s despairing sadness towards the phenomena produced by the unjust inequality in 18th century England. In “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake expresses his anger at the late 18th and 19th century's use of child labor in urban England. In “London,” Blake illustrates the depressing class oppression that could be easily seen through the streets of London.