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CONCLUSION

I would like to finish by explaining what I have done in this second paper and my impressions about this author.

My main aim has been analyse three of William Blake’s poems in order the reader familiarizes with his “uniqueness” : “A Cradle Song” (Songs of Innocence), “The Tyger” (Songs of Experience) and “Jerusalem“, which belong to different stages of his life. It could be considered as the continuation of the first one since what was explained in it then, it is reflected and expressed now in these three chosen poems (her life, his beliefs, the time in which he lived…).

I chose specially one of “Songs of Innocence” and another of  Songs of Experience” to be able to see the contrast in both works of the author. As it was said before, in “Songs of Innocence” there is an innocent perspective whereas in “Songs of Experience” the perspective of the world is completely hopeless and devastated.We could say in another words that in “Songs of experience”, there is a mature point of view of life, whereas in “Songs of innocence” everything is pure, whitish and hopeful.   

I have enjoyed a lot working about William Blake since I really admire him. I have learnt a lot about him and now I understand why he is so amazing. I think that I did a good choice in the topic since, without any doubt, he is “unique”. It is a pity he was misunderstood and therefore not recognized in his lifetime but later he has been considered as one of the major poets of English literature. His work is distinguished by the creation and illustration of a complex mythological system, in which imagination is of paramount importance, serving as the vehicle of humanity’s communion with the spiritual essence of reality.It’s unbelievable the intensity and compactness of the expression in his poems, especially within the discipline of rhyme and meter that make it easy to remember the words.

I would like to mention that that the dates of composition of his texts are on the whole extremely uncertain, not least because “composition” with Blake often means something very protracted: writing, etching, printing, hand-colouring, and finally arranging plates in sequence. This is why this author is so “unique”.

Concentrating on a basic iconic element in his art, and adapting it to one’s imaginative needs, is precisely what he urges:

“If the spectator could enter into these images in his imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if he could…make a friend and companion of one of these images onf wonder…then would he arise from his grave, then would he meet the Lord in the air, and then he would be happy”.

Blake generally takes some aspect of his source, ignoring the rest, and develops it with an extraordinary creativiy for his own characteristic purposes. His restlessness and uncertainty, his taste for, and respect for, contradiction, may have been gratified in the extraordinary leaps from history to dream, from song to manifesto, from sex to epistemology-indeed some of these transitions occur within the poems themselves.

He said:  “I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create”.

He is “unique” because he is the most individual of the Romantic movement. It is penetrating insight of Blake’s to the spiritual, over and above the human condition that make them startling. He is able to have such a compact and powerful poems through the word-choices and figurative language the employs.

I really love this way of escaping from system, and not just because there was no inherited framework to contrain him. He is the great anti-simplifier, always probing for contradiction, especially self-contradiction. He regarded it as a kind of moral imperative. Whatever the truth of this, there is no doubt that Blake’s personal mythology is complex because he used it precisely to achieve complexity: as a device for virtually unlimited multiplication and diversification.

I did a good work in my first paper so this time has been easier for me doing the second since I already had more knowledge about the author. My problem analysing the poems was that as I had used lots of books and web pages in the execution of the the first one this time has been very difficult to find new ones with information that I hadn’t worked on . Furthermore, I would like to say that I haven’t been able to find reliable information on the Internet about the poems so I have tried to give my personal opinion linking it with all that I could find.

“JERUSALEM”

After having seen “A Cradle Song” and “The Tyger”, I will based this time my analysis on my third chosen poem: “Jerusalem”.

I decided to work on it as well because it belongs to a different stage of William Blake’s life. It’s the last of Blake’s so-called prophetic works.

Blake conceived of and wrote the work as an epic poem and supplemented it with 100 illuminated engraved plates which illustrate the fall and subsequent salvation of Albion, the universal human.

While acknowledging the overall inscrutability of the poem, commentators also have considered Jerusalem to be a harrowing masterpiece that asserts Blake’s radical concept of how Divine Vision inspires imagination which, in turn, becomes the key to the spiritual redemption of humankind.

Jerusalem is divided into four chapters, each of which features twenty-five engraved plates that illustrate the narrative progression.

http://www.progressiveliving.org/william_blake_poetry_jerusalem.htm

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

 

ANALYSIS ONE

The sixteen lines, originally written as four-line stanzas, divide into two distinct parts. The first eight lines comprise four questions, each beginning “And”. The first of these pairs is:

“And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England’s mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God/ On England’s pleasant pastures seen?”

This refers to the ancient legend that, as a boy, Jesus of Nazareth was taken by his great-uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, on one of the latter’s trading visits to England. Although there is absolutely no evidence for this claim, it is just about possible that a metals trader from ancient Palestine, which Joseph could have been, made visits to Cornwall, which was a vital source of tin and other metals that were traded with various parts of the Roman Empire. Why would he not have taken his young great-nephew on such a trip? One can imagine young Jesus begging his parents to let him go and their eventual giving in to his entreaties.

So, if the boy Jesus did visit England, in Blake’s eyes that made England a special place by having been blessed by the “Countenance Divine”. It also made England a prime candidate for the building of “New Jerusalem”.

The fourth couplet of the poem reads:

“And was Jerusalem builded here / Among these dark Satanic mills?”

This refers not only to Jesus bringing “Jerusalem” with him, but to three words that have given rise to much speculation as to their meaning. It has long been thought that the dark Satanic mills must be the wool and cotton mills of the Industrial Revolution that was getting into full swing during Blake’s lifetime.

However, other explanations have been put forward. One is that the reference is to the “Albion Flour Mill”, that was close to where Blake had once lived. Another is that the mills are the grindstones of the Universities, or the Church, both of which were targets for Blake’s anger. Another thought is that Blake, who was living in Sussex at the time he wrote the poem, was referring to the many windmills that had been erected in the area to increase the flour supply during Napoleon’s blockade of Britain. Why Satanic? Because Blake had just read “Don Quixote”, in which the hero does battle with enemy knights who turn out to be windmills.

Whatever the explanation, Blake clearly has a negative attitude to the mills, and sees Jerusalem as a force of good that can defeat their evil.

The second pair of stanzas takes a very different turn. The questioning ends and, in its place, the poet becomes a man of action, determined to take up arms in the “mental fight” to build Jerusalem “in England’s green and pleasant land”. Reminiscence on past legend gives way to present resolve and future intention.

The third stanza comprises four commands to some person or persons unknown:

“Bring me my Bow of burning gold / Bring me my Arrows of desire

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! / Bring me my Chariot of Fire.”

This is very powerful imagery that cannot be taken literally. It would, for example, be difficult to wield a bow and arrows and a spear at the same time! We find in the next stanza that Blake also intends to arm himself with a sword, so he will certainly have his hands full if attempting to control a fiery chariot along with everything else!

Of course, this does not matter, because the battle is not to be a physical one. As the fourth stanza makes clear, this is a “mental fight” to be fought in terms of intellectual persuasion, but with an unshakeable determination and sense of purpose. These are “arrows of desire” to be loosed, the desire being to build the new Jerusalem, by which can be understood the “Heaven on Earth” that could have existed when visited by “those feet in ancient time”.

One thing to note in the last but one line is the change from “I” to “we”. Up to this point, the fight has been a solitary one, with the only reference to anyone else being the imaginary servant who is going to appear with a chariot full of weapons. But now it is “till we have built Jerusalem”. Blake is conscious that it will take more than one person to win the battle, and so this becomes a call to others to follow his example and be led by him.

“Jerusalem” must therefore be seen as a rallying call to the people of England (and this is an “English” rather than a “British” poem) to make their country a fit place for the foundation of Heaven on Earth. It is in some ways a patriotic poem; for example, it suggests that England may already have been blessed by the presence of Jesus. However, it makes no claims that England is currently a great country or worthy of admiration by other nations. Satan is present in the land, in whatever mills we wish to visualise, and huge efforts will be necessary to create the desired situation.

“Jerusalem” is above all a poem of hope, saying that what once existed can exist again, but only through the strong efforts of its citizens. It is not a prayer, as it does not call upon God to make good things happen. That is why it has been accepted by many with no religious convictions as a suitable vehicle of expression for the desire for social change through human determination.

http://www.helium.com/items/1900927-analysis-of-jerusalem-by-william-blake?page=3

ANALYSIS 2

The poem traces the actions of three principal characters: Jesus Christ, the representation of humanity in its divine form; Albion, the universal human who initially denies that Christ is the source of the intellectual inspiration which will lead to his salvation; and Los, the poet-prophet who acts as Albion’s agent of redemption through the regeneration of his artistic imagination.

Blake’s final and longest epic in illuminated printing constitutes a recapitulation and summation of his multiple interests, ranging from his own mythology to biblical history, from sexuality to epistemology, and from the Druids to Newton. The cast of characters is vast, but Los (the artist’s imagination at work in the material world), Jerusalem and Albion (the female and male portions of divided humanity who must be reunited), the nature goddess Vala, and Jesus play major roles. The poem is divided into four chapters, each addressed to a different audience: the Public, the Jews, the Deists, and the Christians. Jerusalem concludes with a vision of human consciousness in a post-apocalyptic universe

In the first chapter, addressed “To the Public,” Blake outlines his poetic objective and presents the main characters in his mythological milieu. He then dramatizes the principal conflict in which Albion mentally rejects Christ’s invitation for union, dismissing Jesus as a “Phantom of the overheated brain.” In the ensuing chapters, Blake identifies three systems of error which prevent Albion from achieving spiritual redemption.

In Chapter II, addressed “To the Jews,” the poet takes to task the physically repressive elements of Judaism in which an initial celebration of humanity gradually becomes replaced by an emphasis on the negation of one’s physical being. This negation takes the form of emphasizing sin, retribution, and the defiled state of the human body.

In Chapter III, addressed “To the Deists,” Blake focuses on the mental degeneration of his contemporaries who have turned their backs on the divinity of Christ to pursue a worldly code of scientific rationalization for the existence of God, the implementation of a system of strict moral conduct, and an emphasis on material possession in lieu of spiritual reward.

In Chapter IV, addressed “To the Christians,” Blake vehemently criticizes this group for their corruption of the imagination by distorting a religion of love and forgiveness into one of sin and retribution. Further, this group replaces the Christian concept of brotherhood with an egotism and selfishness which diminishes their ability to imagine brotherly love and the divine union with Christ. Ultimately, though, Blake remains optimistic that all of these errors can be corrected. Indeed, Chapter IV concludes with an apocalypse in which Albion finally affirms the divinity of Christ. In the end, Albion is resurrected into the divine form of humanity in which all of his parts—body, mind, and imagination—are purified and reunited.

Major Themes

A principal theme in Jerusalem involves the universal human’s mental struggle between embracing spiritual salvation through the unrestricted use of one’s imagination and fragmenting one’s identity through abject submission to various worldly influences. In his poem, Blake identifies a number of factors which serve to negate the human intellect: Selfhood, or pride, envy, and a lack of awareness beyond meeting one’s own physical and material needs; the historical and cultural accretion of religious dogma, moral absolutes, and scientific analysis; and the Female Will, or sexual manipulation on the part of women. All of these divisive factors create systems of error which subvert the human intellect in its pursuit of spiritual divinity. Wholly embracing the power of the imagination releases the universal human from the corruptive temptation of the worldly realm and awakens his senses to the Divine Vision of spiritual regeneration.

We can see the uniqueness of William Blake in his emphasis on imagination. It is the concept of the universal human’s place in time and space. For Blake, both redemption and eternity are states of the mind. Time itself is nonlinear; instead it is a combination of simultaneous and chronological sequences of events. The acceptance of the limitless imagination awakens the universal human to the perspective that he has achieved eternal life. However, this mode of perception is more a mental and intellectual state than a physical resurrection. It involves a new awareness that one is a part of an infinity in which every moment in time occurs both simultaneously and continuously. Ultimately, one achieves an enlightened state of consciousness in which there is no concept of beginning and ending, only being. For Blake, this event is the apocalypse, or the Second Coming of Christ, in which Jesus bestows divinity upon the universal human.

Blake considers the poet to be a crucial agent in the union of humankind with Christ. Indeed, the poet is the prophet who can foresee the apocalypse and salvation and who acts as a guide to lead the universal human to the Divine Vision.

http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/jerusalem-emanation-giant-albion-william-blake

“THE TYGER”

 “The Tyger” is one of the poems of William Blake’s collection “Songs of Experience” in 1794. In “A Cradle Song”, which belong to “Songs of Innocence”, there is an innocent perspective, as we have already seen previously whereas in “Songs of Experience” the perspective of the world is completely hopeless and devastated.We could say in another words that in “Songs of experience”, there is a mature point of view of life, whereas in “Songs of innocence” everything is pure, whitish and hopeful.   

It could be considered as one of the most known and analysed poems of William Blake. Furtheremore, “The Tyger” is one of the most popular examples of his artistic unions between theologically critical Romantic poetry and the prints that he used as a medium for expressing them.

I was introduced to “The Tyger” when I was in Ireland last summer, as I have mentioned before in the introduction but  my admiration increased when our poetry’s teacher read it for us in class and explain the main ideas of it. I knew that I would work about William Blake so I thought it could be interesting include it in my work to show you his “uniqueness”.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

This poem has a religious references, as we could see in “A Cradle Song”. It could be considered as an intriguing moral critique of Protestant Christianity, or more specifically, a theological query into the motivations of Creation itself. William Blake builds upon the devout Christian theme of its poetic predecessor and goes on to ask questions concerning what Blake believed to be the existence of evil, the malice of Creation, and the Judeo-Christian God’s apparent desire to punish that which he creates.

Undoubtedly, this poem is a good example of “Blake’s uniqueness” as well since he was a perfect example of the more rebellious genre of Romanticism: questioning and sometimes overtly attacking principles of Protestant theology in his work. “The Tyger” is such an enthralling theological critique, because it has, forging in the depths of hell a monster to be unleashed upon mankind, not the Devil, but the Protestant God himself, the creator of the Tyger.

“The Tyger” contains a different perspective of human life than “A Cradle Song”. The tyger could be compared to an “experienced” human. It is described as an animal that basically has to kill everyday in order to live. It is a being whose life is made by death. The question is asked “What immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” The “experienced” author is asking why God dared to make humans the way that they are, the way of the tyger. This, of course, is differs greatly from the perspective of the “innocence” which we saw in the analysis of the other poem.

William Blake’s “The Tyger” could be regarded as a theological examination into who exactly it was that created such a fiery and powerful creature such as the Tyger. We can see it in the first stanza:

Blake, in essence, is asking: “Was it God or the Devil that created such a terrible, awe-inspiring beast?  And if it was not the Devil, what kind of Protestant God would create a creature with such a dreadful and unholy maliciousness? ”  It is this line of theological debate that makes Blake’s “The Tyger” such an interesting philosophical question, and in order to come close to Blake’s meaning one must dive deeply into the mind of a poet who has had his very sanity questioned after expressions of such profoundly intense genius. 

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In the second stanza, in lines 5 and 6 Blake is asking  whether the Tyger was created in Heaven by God or forged in Hell as some from of vengeance by the Devil.  After this powerful introduction, the rest of Blake’s “The Tyger” goes on to question until the fifth stanza, in poetic verse, which divine entity could be the architect of such a dreaded creature as the Tyger.

In line 7 we can see is an allusion to the question of which side of the divine spectrum was the creator of the Tyger.  Was the “framer” ascending on heavenly angel wings, and therefore a symbol of the Judeo-Christian God or one of his affiliated Arch angels, or did he have, as Milton describes in Paradise Lost, dragon wings of a scaly membrane characteristic of the fallen angel, Satan.  

Line 8 can be interpreted in several ways.  It can be read as two different, but refreshingly similar, references to Greek mythology’s Prometheus, and the antagonist of Milton’s own Protestant epic mythology of Paradise Lost, Satan.  On one hand,Prometheus was the Greek titan who, favoring the good of humanity, stole fire from Zeus, and, after giving it to mankind, was punished by being chained to a rock where a great bird would eat his immortal liver every day thereafter. 

On the other hand, as a reference to Satan, the seizing of “fire” can be interpreted as the unholy oath by Satan to rule in hell and attack Creation through subterfuge and unholy sabotage.  

 The Prometheus interpretation carries so much weight in Blake’s “The Tyger” because it is a classical, pre-Christian myth about a rebellious divine actor who disobeys on the behalf of mankind but is punished by a tyrant God.  This can be seen as significant because the theme of the Prometheus myth shares a great deal in common with the overlying theme of William Blake’s Song of Innocence and Experience and “The Tyger”: a theme of divine tyranny over mankind.

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

In the third stanza we can realise the powerful imagery-like descriptions of a divine creator molding the Tyger creature into existence.  Lines 9 and 10 are a particularly powerful poetic description of a large demonic predator having its nature perverted into carnivorous malevolence by some divine force that has no love for the humanity that will be sharing the world with it.  This stanza is used by Blake to further influence the reader who is trying to answer Blake’s question: Was the Tyger created by God or the Devil?  It is later in the poem, when Blake reveals who he truly believes created the Tyger, that the third stanza comes to show just how much passion he has for the subject matter; describing a terrible, bloody procedure that many of us have come to think of as a miraculous creation that happens on a heavenly cloud with a flash of white light.

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

In the fourth stanza, there is an interesting dynamic between diabolical creation and a popular interpretation as a reference to the Greek god, Hephaestus.  Again, the reader finds themselves enveloped in descriptions of dark, morbid manufacture: “What the hammer? what the chain, / In what furnace was thy brain?” (Lines 13-14).  The more one reads into Blake’s “The Tyger”, the further they begin to acquire the image of some deep Hell-furnace where only Satan would be working such evils.  The prose seems to almost sting with sulfur as Blake writes “what dread grasp, / Dare its deadly terrors clasp?” (Lines 15-16), building, again, upon the ominously infernal deed of bringing such a predatory force of nature such as the Tyger into existence; a deed that only one divine culprit could ever possibly be responsible: the Devil.  Also, the descriptions of divine “hammer”, “chain”, “furnace” and “evil” popularly bring to mind the Greek god Hephaestus, the blacksmith god of fire and metallurgy who was plagued with a lame leg and toiled under the volcano, Mount Aetna, creating weapons, armor, and artwork for the other gods who only distained him for his ugliness.  This plausible reference to Hephaestus serves much the same purpose as the reference to Prometheus to the possible theme of Blake’s “The Tyger”: presenting allusions of tragic Greek titans and gods who are either enslaved or bound in servitude to a malicious tyrant-God figure; a greater theme that that finds its deeper significance in the greater theme of Blake’s own Romantic work.

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

In the fifth stanza, it show us how William Blake was heavily influenced by the divine epic, Paradise Lost, written by John Milton in 1668, fifty years after the completion of King James’ own translation of the Bible to English.  Within the epic, Paradise Lost, Milton writes of the Christian mythology of Satan’s revolt against God and the ensuing holy war that took place in heaven, ending with the exile of the rogue angel to Hell.  This arousing and romantic allegorical epic would nurture artistic creativity to this day, and William Blake’s own creative work would be far from the exception; much of his own art centering around the theme of Protestantism, religious mythology, and theological philosophy.  William Blake’s “The Tyger” would prove itself, though while still not his most absorbing project, one of the most popular examples of Blake’s philosophy in contemporary society, and its references to Milton’s Paradise Lost has helped to facilitate much of its popular consumption and interpretation. 

  The first two lines of the fifth stanza  is a direct reference to Milton’s Paradise Lost, describing the scene where the defending angels, after the battle had been won in heaven, threw down their spears and wept for their angel brethren who had been cast out: “When the stars threw down their spears / And water’d heaven with their tears” (Lines 17 and 18).  This reference to a scene from Milton’s Paradise Lost, while still an interesting addition to the poem, serves its greater purpose as setting the scene for Blake to reveal his overall theme of “The Tyger”, and essentially twist the direction of the momentum that he has been building up to this point.

 The following lines, “Did he smile his work to see? / Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (Lines 19 and 20), are, perhaps, the most important lines of Blake’s “The Tyger”.  Blake completely redirects the focus of “The Tyger” that had, until this point, been almost completely alluding to the creator of the Tyger being the Devil, and was now directly indicating that the creator of the Tyger was, in fact, God.  In Milton’s Paradise Lost, God laughs at the fallen angels and mocks their disloyalty against their omnipotent patriarch; laughing at creatures that he himself had created and was now punishing after they exercised the free will he had given them.  God exiles them to the prison, Hell, where he would also send more of his creations, mortal man, after they too sin against him.  This dichotomy of God’s love and punishment, a duality between the images of a loving father figure and malicious patriarchic tyrant, would prove to be a cornerstone of Blake’s art and his poem “The Tyger”: duality being realized in the printed medium of “The Tyger” was well as within Blake’s theological theme.

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

These are some of the questions that William Blake make in “The Tyger”:

1) What kind of a God, then, could or would design such a terrifying beast as the tiger?

2)How is it possible that the God who created the Lamb, the symbol of God’s son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy love and compassion preached by the Protestant church, could also have created the Tyger?

3) The Tyger being a symbol for the evil, predatory, malevolent forces that exist on Earth, or perhaps even a symbol of the Devil himself; How could God have such blatant indifference, or even hatred, for the wellbeing of his creations that will suffer at the hands of such forces?

4) How can a God that loves mankind still be the same God who creates its undoing; How can the God who creates the Lamb, also be the creator of the Tyger that stalks and preys on it?

5) What does the undeniable existence of evil and violence in the world tell us about the nature of God?

6) What does it mean to live in a world where a being can at once contain both beauty and horror

The Tyger” show us theological accusations against the divine motivations of the very Judeo-Christian God who was responsible for Creation itself. William Blake,  was created by God, so too was the Tyger, and Blake poetically confronts this theological issue.

William Blake is essentially unique in “The Tyger”, what he says is a a form of social protest, in much the same theme as the French Revolution, that Protestant Christians should be critical of a faith that has, at its centre, a God that chooses to punish so readily the creatures he brings into existence. 

http://bestword.ca/William_Blake_The_Tyger_Analysis_01.html

“A CRADLE SONG”

A Cradle Song” is one of the 19 poems of “Songs of Innocence”, a William Blake’s work which was printed for the first time in 1789.

After reading all the poems I decided that I would analyse “A Cradle Song” since,  as I see, it’s a good example to explain how he concentrated on the spiritual aspect of humanity. This fact, among others, is what really makes him “unique”.

 Here you will be able to find “A Cradle Song” sung: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLrKRLn2QpA

I love this gentle poem because it reflects perfectly the tenderness of one mother towards her child. We can realise the innocence and the purity of the baby in it.   

Do you think William Blake’s is referring to someone special in this poem? Have you thought about someone?  Blake doesn’t need to mention who is talking about, but we can imagine that maybe the baby is Jesus and his mother is the Virgin. However, this poem can be seen as well as a universal point of view. This situation had not only happened to Jesus as we know.  I’m completely sure that most of us have been sung at birth. The difference could be that we didn’t wear an infant crown as we can see in the second stanza.

Every mother who has just given birth to a baby could be identified as the Virgin since they usually have the same feelings towards their babies.

This poem was written during the Romanticism. As we saw in the first paper, it was a period which was developed during the Industrial Revolution, characterised by the enlightenment, the importance of nature, art, emotions and the importance of human being and his existence. “A Cradle Song” is one of William Blake’s poems in which it is reflected. The human being was the core, but he was also seen as a grain of sand compared to the extension of the universe.

In the first paper we saw it in the analysis of “London”. In this poem he is based as well in the human psyche, that is, the human soul, spirit and mind of the disenfranchised, empowers them as the appalling conditions under which they suffer are exposed.

But what really influenced Blake and his poems was the Industrial Revolution. He was very worried about the situation women and children were living in. I think that in “A Cradle Song” what William Blake’s tries to show us is the mother’s protection towards her baby. Now he is innocent and he doesn’t see what is happening outside, meanwhile she is very worried. We can see it in the fifth stanza:

Sleep, sleep, happy child,

All creation slept and smi’ld

Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,

While o’er thee thy mother weep.

For me this is a very significant poem if we take into account that William Blake didn’t have children. As we can see in his different poems he loves them. Most of the times children are the main characters in his poems. In the analysis of “London” in the first paper we saw his love towards them in his feelings against the exploitation of child labour. This action was opposite to the original Christian message of love for all and charity for the poverty.

William Blake was a very religious man. His writings has always reflected the difficulties of religious belief for an intellectually advanced person in his era.  Blake believed that Man was God; by the same token, God is no more than Man. He denied that the natural world could be the grounds of religion; but “everything that lives is holy”. For Blake Christianity is true; but the Old Testament is worse than unenlightened, and the New Testament must be read in an unorthodox, rather commonsensical spirit.

He believed what saved a person’s soul was not faith but knowledge. Faith, he felt, was a term that was abused by those who thought spending every Sunday in a church would grant them eternal salvation regardless of what actions they exhibited outside the walls of the church. Church ceremonies were also dry, emotionless and meaningless, according to Blake. Church was evil, as Blake would have put it.

So maybe, as I’ve mentioned before,  the baby in this poem could be Jesus who is sung by his mother, The Virgin.  His mother is so sad since she knows how cruel is the world and the people, it’s a reflection of the Industrial Revolution. It’s like if she already knows his destinity: he was born to die, to save us but she is worried and scared to bring the baby into the big bad world.

There are a lot of religious references in “A Cradle of Song”. One of them is in the last stanza: “Infant smiles are his own smiles”. Personally, I think that with “HIS” he is referring to God. Blake argued that God is something that resides in all of humanity.

My point of view is that everybody could love this poem. It’s not necessary to be religious. This could be one interpretation but the other one could be the motherhood, how one mother looks after her child, how she feels when she sings to him and how she loves him. In other words, how the baby means everything to her.

William Blake’s uniqueness is seen in “A Cradle Song”. It’s difficult to know what is the interpretation of this poem since he was a genious. There are moments in which I doubt of the feelings of the mother. Is she crying of joy or of sadness?

“A Cradle Song” is a good example of “Songs of Innocence” since it reflects, as we have seen, the innocent and joyous perspective of the child and at the same time the more experienced perspective of an adult.  The children’s  happiness or misery is determined by their relationships with the adults who maintain control over their lives.

INTRODUCTION

As I’ve mentioned before in the abstract, this time my work won’t be based on William Blake’s life or the time in which he lived (The Romanticism). It will be focused on the analysis of  three of his poems. I considered that it would be interesting for the reader that these three chosen ones belong to different time of William Blake’s life.

We don’t have to forget the topic of both works: “William Blake’s uniqueness”. If you have read the first paper, you will have realised why he was so “unique”. He was not only a poet, but also a revolutionary and visionary artist. He was perceived as an independent artist in a time where reason was very important. He was as well a man with passionately held beliefs on religion, philosophy, politics, morality, and art whose propagation was the purpose of his writings. All these characteristics are, then, reflected in his poems.

Blake’s most popular work was “Songs of Innocence and Experience”. “Innocence” and “Experience” are definitions of conciousness that rethink Milton’s existential-mythic states of “Paradise” and the “Fall”.  In one hand, with the noun “Innocence” he refers to the childhood which is a time and state of protected “innocence”, not immune to the institutions. On the other,  “Experience” refers a state of being marked by the loss of childhood vitality, by fear and inhibition, by social and political corruption, and by the manifold oppression of Church, State, and the ruling classes. As it was explained in the first paper, William Blake opposed to tyranny wherever he found it and a distrust of authority whether it be represented in kings, priests or even in the very idea of a monolithic deity who rules human affairs.

“Songs of Innocence” it is a collection of 19 poems, engraved with artwork. I chose to work on “A Cradle Song”. I thought there was not a better example for explaining children’s innocence. It shows us why William Blake was considered so great, so “unique”.

On the other hand, I decided to work on “The Tyger” since it is one of the most notable poems in “Songs of Experience”. As I explained in the first paper, I was introduced to it in Ireland when a friend of mine who is a well-known jeweler and graver showed me a plat he has made based on this poem. (You can see it here: http://www.imaxenes.com/imagen/dibujo1kx96vg.jpg.html)

Furthermore, our Poetry’s teacher spoke about it when he introduced us William Blake so I felt an extremely admiration for this poem.

The third chosen poem is “Jerusalem”, the symbolic residence of a humanity freed of the inter-related chains of commerce, British imperialism, and war.

In the conclusion you will be able to find the main ideas, my impressions and my own conclusion.

WEBLOGRAPHY

 BIBLIOGRAPHY:

WEBLOGRAPHY:

COVER PAGE

William Blake- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake

William Blake- Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake

Imágenes William Blake: http://www.google.es/images?hl=es&biw=1276&bih=620&q=im%C3%A1genes+william+blake&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=KeYDTbfaCM6gOvG85aYB&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=2&ved=0CC4QsAQwAQ

INTRODUCTION

The Enlightenment: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.html

ImaXenes.com- dibujo1kx96vg.jpg.html:http://www.imaxenes.com/imagen/dibujo1kx96vg.jpg.html

 The W.Blake page: http://www.gailgastfield.com/innocence/soi.html

British Literature Wiki: http://britlitwiki.wikispaces.com/Companion+Poems

 

“A CRADLE SONG”

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic age: Introduction: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/welcome.htm

The William Blake Archieve: http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/main.html

A Cradle Song< Songs Of Innocence < William Blake: http://4umi.com/blake/innocence/11T

Poet’s Corner- William Blake- Songs of Innocence and Experience: http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake02.html#innocence

Songs of innocence and experience: shewing the two contrary states of the human soul 1789: http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BlaSong.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=11&division=div2

The Industrial Revolution: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html

YouTube- a cradle song (William Blake) by Gerrie Noordijk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLrKRLn2QpA

Analyzing William Blake poetry: http://www.emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/ce/misc/drew/blake.htm

The Enlightenment: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.html

A cradle song: http://mural.uv.es/loursanz/cradelsong.html

William Blake Songs of Innocence and of Experience: http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/songs-innocence-experience-william-blake

“THE TYGER”

French Revolution: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist7.html

William Blake’s The Tyger: analysis: http://bestword.ca/William_Blake_The_Tyger_Analysis_01.html

The William Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/main.html

BBC-Poetry Season-Poems-The Tyger by William Blake: http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poems/the_tyger.shtml

William Blake Page: http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/britlit/97-98/blake/poems.htm

Imágenes de google: http://www.google.es/imgres?imgurl=http://middleschoolpoetry180.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/the_tyger_bm_a_1794.jpg&imgrefurl=http://middleschoolpoetry180.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/the-tyger-william-blake/&usg=__5sle92Wy2lyKmsJyl-oDXFhOPp0=&h=1343&w=798&sz=392&hl=es&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=4g1C0M21Fld6PM:&tbnh=147&tbnw=87&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthe%2Btyger%2Bwilliam%2Bblake%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D620%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=679&ei=SV0FTcPRMcyUOqO1tagB&oei=SV0FTcPRMcyUOqO1tagB&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:0&tx=39&ty=64

The Tiger, by William Blake: Study Guide: http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Tiger.html

Paradise Lost: the poem: http://www.paradiselost.org/

 SparkNotes: Songs of Innocence and Experience: “The Tyger: http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake/section6.rhtml

Understanding William Blake “The Tyger”: http://www.pathguy.com/tyger.htm

 

“JERUSALEM”

The William Blake Archive: http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/work.xq?workid=jerusalem&java=yes

 Jerusalem- A poem by William Blake: http://www.progressiveliving.org/william_blake_poetry_jerusalem.htm

 Poetry Analysis: Jerusalem by William Blake: http://www.helium.com/items/1900927-analysis-of-jerusalem-by-william-blake

William Blake Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion Criticism: http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/jerusalem-emanation-giant-albion-william-blake

William Blake’s “Perfectly Mad Poem Jerusalem”: http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/2009/05/william-blakes-perfectly-mad-poem.html

 

Weblography

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

–  Blake, William: Antología bilingüe. Literatura Alianza. Editorial, S.A, Madrid, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2002. ISBN: 84-206-7326-9

–  Bloom, Harold: Romanticism and Consciousness. Essays in criticism. Edited by Harold Bloom. 1970 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN: 0-393-09954-7

Mason, Michael: William Blake Selected Poetry, Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford University Press. Printed in Great Britain by Caledonian International Book Manufacturing. Lit. Glasgow. r.f = 318560-19-283489-4

Abrams, M.H: English Romantic Poets, Oxford University Press. Modern Essays in Criticism. Edited by M.H. Abrams. 1975 by Oxford University Press.

– Punter, David: William Blake Selected Poetry and Prose. Edited by David Punter. r.f= 12465. ISBN: 0-415-00666. First published in 1988 by Routledge.

WEBLOGRAPHY

COVER PAGE

William Blake- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_BlakeW

William Blake- Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake

William Blake: http://www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/blake/welcome.htm#intro_anch

Romanticism:http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html

Google Image Result for http://www.poetseers.org/the_poetseers/blake/william-blake-pic.jpg: http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.poetseers.org/the_poetseers/blake/william-blake-pic.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.poetseers.org/the_poetseers/blake/&usg=__JoqJtB61–V1eQp78u9agZeGcg0=&h=220&w=210&sz=15&hl=en&start=62&zoom=1&tbnid=DJcF3IErAZ2I_M:&tbnh=123&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwilliam%2Bblake%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1116%26bih%3D575%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1387&um=1&itbs=1&ei=paEDTfvNIsqwhQeV8ZXuBw&biw=1116&bih=575&iact=rc&dur=239&oei=TKEDTe-pL4aL4AbMg6XsCQ&esq=4&page=4&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:62&tx=63&ty=71

INTRODUCTION

ImaXenes.com- dibujo1kx96vg.jpg.html:http://www.imaxenes.com/imagen/dibujo1kx96vg.jpg.html

Blake’s revolution: http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj62/cox.htm

William Blake As Mystic: http://www.hermes-press.com/blake.htm

William Blake: a visionary for our time: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/arts_culture/literature/william_blake_visionary

Welcome to the William Blake Archieve: http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/

Songs of Experience: http://www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/blake/songs_o3.htm

 

BIOGRAPHY

Youtube-William Blake-: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI2rZ5LPihE

Http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/Saxonservlet?source=blake/documents/biography.xml&st: http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/blake/documents/biography.xml&style=blake/shared/styles/wba.xsl&targ_div=d1&targ_pict=1&render=text&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

Http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/Saxonservlet?source=blake/documents/biography.xml&st: http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/blake/documents/biography.xml&style=blake/shared/styles/wba.xsl&targ_div=d2&targ_pict=1&render=text&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

Http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/Saxonservlet?source=blake/documents/biography.xml&st: http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/blake/documents/biography.xml&style=blake/shared/styles/wba.xsl&targ_div=d3&targ_pict=1&render=text&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

Http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/Saxonservlet?source=blake/documents/biography.xml&st: http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/blake/documents/biography.xml&style=blake/shared/styles/wba.xsl&targ_div=d4&targ_pict=1&render=text&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

Http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/Saxonservlet?source=blake/documents/biography.xml&st: http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/blake/documents/biography.xml&style=blake/shared/styles/wba.xsl&targ_div=d5&targ_pict=1&render=text&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

Http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/Saxonservlet?source=blake/documents/biography.xml&st: http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/blake/documents/biography.xml&style=blake/shared/styles/wba.xsl&targ_div=d6&targ_pict=1&render=text&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

Http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/Saxonservlet?source=blake/documents/biography.xml&st:  http://www.blakearchive.org/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/blake/documents/biography.xml&style=blake/shared/styles/wba.xsl&targ_div=d7&targ_pict=1&render=text&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

About Blake: http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/about-blake.html

William Blake: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wblake.htm

The William Blake page: http://www.gailgastfield.com/Blake.html

William Blake: biography: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRblake.htm

William Blake: http://www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/blake/Life.htm

William Blake- Poets.org- Poetry, Poems, Bios & more: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/116

William Blake- Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online.Discuss: http://www.online-literature.com/blake/

 

ROMANTICISM (HISTORICAL CONTEXT)

Youtube- The American Revolution: 1776 Ep.2, Pt 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1f95KSVW8M

French Revolution: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist7.html

English Literature on the Web: http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/EngLit.html

The Norton Anthology of English Literature:The Romantic Age: Introduction:  http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/welcome.htm

The Blake Society: http://www.blakesociety.org/

Eletronic Editions: Romantic Circles: http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/

William Blake and the Radical Swedenborgians: http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/Blake.htm

81.02.06: The Industrial Revolution: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html

Industrial Revolution:http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter3.html

The Factory System of the Early Nineteenth Century- William H.Hutt- Mises Daily: http://mises.org/daily/2443

Romanticism- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

The Englightenment:http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.html

The Chimney Sweeper–Blake-: http://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/poetry/blake.html

ANALYSIS OF “LONDON”

YouTube- “London” by William Blake (poetry reading): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bgUMoUNgJQ

BBC- Poetry Season- Poets- William Blake: http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poets/william_blake.shtml

BBC- Poetry Season- Poems- London by William Blake: http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poems/london.shtml

Poetry Analysis of “London” by William Blake (1757-1827), Page 2 of 3- Associated Con: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1998490/poetry_analysis_of_london_a_poem_by_pg2.html?cat=4

Analysis of Blake’s London Blake’s London Essays: http://www.123helpme.com/assets/8325.html

William Blake-: http://www.netpoets.com/classic/003000.htm

William Blake’s Selected Poems (A Critical Analysis by Qaisar Iqbal Janjua)-: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24940750/William-Blake-s-Selected-Poems-A-Critical-Analysis-by-Qaisar-Iqbal-Janjua

Mason, Michael: William Blake Selected Poetry, Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford University Press. Printed in Great Britain by Caledonian International Book Manufacturing. Lit. Glasgow. r.f = 318560-19-283489-4

– Punter, David: William Blake Selected Poetry and Prose. Edited by David Punter. r.f= 12465. ISBN: 0-415-00666. First published in 1988 by Routledge.

WILLIAM BLAKE’S ATTITUDE TO THE SOCIETY HE LIVED EXPRESSED IN HIS “SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE”

 Jerusalem- A Poem by William Blake- : http://www.progressiveliving.org/william_blake_poetry_jerusalem.htm

Poet’s Corner- William Blake – Songs of Innocence and Experience-: http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake02.html

WILFRED OWEN- DULCE ET DECORUM EST, Text of poem and notes- : http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html

Earth’s Answer by William Blake-:  http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/earth-s-answer/

William Blake Page: http://asms.k12.ar.us/classes/humanities/britlit/97-98/blake/poems.htm#CHIMNEY

 

QUOTATIONS

William Blake Quotes- The Quotations Page-:http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/William_Blake/

 

 

 

 

 

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Conclusion

With no doubt, I have enjoyed a lot working on this amazing author since I have learnt a lot of interesting things. How could I live before without knowing about William Blake’s art? He was a poet, a painter, a printmaker, a mystic, a visionary, and a radical who tried to establish himself as an independent artist in a time where reason was very important, as we have seen before. So what I like the most about him is he was a great believer in work, in creative productive labour putting his best imaginative use.

Perhaps, which makes Blake’s life distinctive are not the events themselves but the peculiar light that we find shed around those events as they are recounted in his poetry and in his visual art. It is those events, the everyday occurrences of a person’s life- marriage, achievement, disappointment, even in his case childlessness where we can see how Blake is capable of reaching out to touch the sense of wonder in all of us.

 My topic has been based then on his “uniqueness“.  I have provided a biography and a historical context about him in order the reader familiarizes with him. After that, I have analysed ‘London’, one of his best-known poems to show he was the most individual of the Romantic movement. It is one of my favourite poems since I feel extremely admired by his despiction of the city. It is a dreary yet vivid one. It sends shivers down my spine.

It is penetrating insight of Blake’s to the spiritual, over and above the human condition that make them startling. Blake sees people who are suffering because they accept what the authorities, those in power, the government, the church, tell them. Blake wants to free them, to free their spirit, that is why Blake is unique.

Another feature about his uniqueness is that he was a forerunner refusing to be bound by tradition or by contemporany fashion. Blake is always trying something new and original, those new modes of expression which now mean that we sometimes place him more in the company of the great modernists, Joyce, perhaps, or Yeats.

He was considered a wilful eccentric in the fields of both verbal and visual arts and a madman in his lifetime. It was only after his death that his works gained recognition since he was not, of course, widely known or read in his lifetime. It is unbeliavable how he creates complexity by using his rhetorical skills, which in turn opens up the poem for personal interpretation.

 William Blake tries to attract our attention to the crucial importance of cultivating our sense of the individual, for the social threat since, as he sees it, is that this new, highly organized but feelingless world will reduce people to a mindless conformity, will erode the sense of the individual which is essential not only for the production of great works of art but also for everybody’s sense of participating fully in the world.

As we have seen in ‘London’, Blake was ‘unique‘. He wants the reader feel the same he is seeing and, in my case, he has achieve it. Each time I read it it’s like if I was in that city which is characterized by his terrible state.

 I hope you have had enjoyed a lot reading my paper. See you on the second one!

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Blake lived in the time of the British Industrial Revolution. A time when children were forced to work from a young age and physical punishment was considered normal. It was a time of change. The world was becoming mechanised. Blake didn’t like this.  
Blake was a visionary. He felt very strongly about the way the Industrial Revolution was doing more harm than good and should be stopped. He didn’t like the way children were used as workmen because of their size and the way they were discriminated against. Blake expressed all of his views in his poems, and in many he gets quite frustrated, and it shows in his style of writing.
Blake followed the ideals of the French revolution. His revolutionary views are expressed in his poem “Jerusalem.” He liked the ideas drawn up by the revolution and wanted, more than anything, for his country to follow the same ideas. However it was not to be. The United Kingdom was in the middle of the industrial revolution and so the idea’s that he believed in so strongly, were never implemented.

William Blake wrote “Songs of Innocence and Experience” throughout his lifetime and he was continually revising it. Blake was educated at home and many of the designs in the book were influenced by his home education. The book shows the two sides of the human soul. Like the yin and the yang. Innocence is represented by the yin and experience by the yang.

Right from the beginning of the two sections of the book with the two introductions it is clearly evident which one is which. The introduction to The Book of Innocence talks about the Bible and Jesus. It says “pipe a song about a lamb.” Jesus was the Lamb of God. The themes in the poem are primarily about taming wild ideas. There is a progression from something wild, to something tamed in the poem.

The image of the lamb comes up in the poem as well. In a lot of his poems Blake uses the lamb as an image of experience. In the bible Jesus was the Lamb of God. The innocence in this poem can be compared to U.A. Fanthorpe’s “Half-Past Two”. In the poem the child is innocent as all children are at that age. He doesn’t know how to tell the time and so he must stay in the room not knowing if he would ever leave. The innocence in this poem is represented by the lamb in Blake’s. 

If you compare the introduction to The Book of Innocence to the introduction of The Book of Experience you find something completely different. Instead of the innocence of a lamb, you find the someone begging. It is the world. It is begging to be freed from the knowledge it has about humanity. The poem talks of a bard who has seen too much of the world and it is haunting him. Blake could be talking about himself in this poem or someone else. However the person Blake is talking about is begging for the world to stop and repair itself and to break free of the iron shackles of evil of which it is bound. The poem is quite the opposite of its innocence counterpart.

 This poem can be compared to Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” After the innocence of thinking war is bold and brave, the soldier realises with experience that war is nothing like what he thought. Blake’s introduction to experience says the same things. After being innocent the world learns things about humans, and how destructive and horrible they can be. And the world becomes experienced. It regrets its learning because it reveals a horrible truth that he would rather not know. That is why it is begging to be freed in the poem.

“Earth’s Answer”, another of Blake’s poems from the experience section of the book shows another view of experience. The poem tells of the way earth is apparently imprisoned by fear and jealousy, but in fact it is all in the mind. Of course the earth is free. It is only imprisoned in the mind. If it is to escape its imprisonment, it needs to escape its mind. At the start of the last stanza it says “break this heavy chain.” This is the earth asking someone else to release her from imprisonment. This is impossible because there is only one person that has access to the earth’s mind. It is the earth itself.

This poem is in The Book of Experience because, going back to the introduction, it shows how the earth wants to forget the things it has witnessed. Therefore it has to belong to experience.

Blake has written many “pairs” of poems in Songs of Innocence and Experience, one in ‘Songs of Innocence’ and the other in ‘Songs of Experience’. One of these pairs, both entitled “The Chimney Sweeper”, show how Blake viewed the industrial revolution and how he hated it.

The chimney sweeper in The Book of Innocence talks of a boy who has been sold by his parents to work as a chimney sweeper. The innocence in the poem is represented by the boy’s curly white hair. In the second stanza the boy gets it shaved off. At that point, the boy loses his innocence. He knows his fate and so his innocence is lost.

This shows through, because the last two stanzas tell of the boy talking to an angel. It says “if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father and never want joy.” What the angel is really saying is that if you work hard you will die and you can spend the rest of your time in heaven. The boy believes this and the last stanza shows him running off in his innocence to work so he can join his friends and not have to work again.

What this says about the angel is that she feels bad for not being able to help the children on earth. Instead, by offering them a place in heaven by making them work hard so they die quickly it shows that the angel is not as pure as she seems. She wants to help and the only way she can is by being cruel to them and telling them that life will be better soon. It can leave two impressions on the reader. It can show that the angel is greedy and bad. She wants the children to continue working to ensure that the status quo is maintained and so uses their innocence against them. But it can also leave the reader feeling like the angels are good people and only want to help in the best way they can.

 “The Chimney Sweeper” in The Book of Experience is very different to the one in The Book of Innocence. This one talks of another “little black Thing” (a child chimney sweeper) weeping in the snow. His parents have abandoned him to go to church. The last stanza shows the boy’s parents ignorance. They think because the boy dances and sings that it is okay to abandon him.

The reason this poem is in The Book of Experience is because the child has been a chimney sweeper for a while. He has accepted his fate and given up. He has become experienced enough to think that all hope is gone but in truth, just like in earth’s answer, all of these ideas are all in the child’s head. All he has to do is realise it.

Although Blake hated the Industrial Revolution he still had hope. This hope comes in the form of a poem he wrote called Jerusalem. Although he believed in and followed the ideals of the French revolution, this poem shows how there is still hope. Although not in Songs of Innocence and Experience, Jerusalem shows how Blake hated the industrial revolution and how the ideals of the French revolution should be the way to live. In the poem, Blake used the Legend that Mary Magdalene came to England. Jerusalem represents Blake’s good side. He uses Jerusalem as a place of sanctuary and a place of good. The last three lines “Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand till we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.” By saying this Blake is condemning the Industrial Revolution and saying that he will always be angry, and will always fight until the horrors of the revolution stop and until England has been cleansed of treachery. Jerusalem represents the Promised Land. Blake has done this to show that although he believes the industrial revolution is bad, there is still hope for the world.

William Blake wrote many poems in his book Songs of Innocence and Experience all of which represent a hatred of the Industrial Revolution or a support of the French revolution ideals. He was a very controversial poet in the 17th and 18th century but now his poems can be considered as masterpieces. They are like little wedges of insight into his life and the Industrial Revolution, and his poems will be remembered as he will be for a long time.

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William Blake often wrote poems that portrayed the oppression and alienation of the common people under the Industrial Revolution, the institutionalized Church and the elitist government. As a Radical, Blake responded to the vast social changes in the historical context by representing the negative aspects of society through his perception of reality and his system of beliefs.
In London he reveals what he conceives to be inequities in the political and social construction during the middle to late 1700’s. Their comment on the human psyche – that is, the human soul, spirit and mind – of the disenfranchised, empowers them as the appalling conditions under which they suffer are exposed.
As we have seen previously in his historical context, the Industrial Revolution was beginning in England.
This historical event which dramatically transformed a previously agrarian, rural society was seen by Blake to have led to the oppression of the common people so his poem “London,” by its title, suggests the new urbanized world into which the disenfranchised labourers and farmers have been forced. Even the natural aspects of the industrial city have been bound – “where the charter’d Thames does flow.” This reflects the physical and metaphorical bondage of the people to a life of suffering and pain – “Marks of weakness, marks of woe.” Their enslavement in the system is further paralleled by the tight rhyming structure of the poem from which no word can deviate.

This sense of oppression is compounded by the repetition of the word “every” in the second stanza – “In every cry of every Man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban” which demonstrates the all-encompassing despair and misery in the human psyche. This dark, pervading atmosphere of hopelessness is observed by a persona who wanders the streets of London. The fact that he sees and hears these examples of widespread degradation shows that his psyche, and hence also the poet’s, is sensitively attuned to the psyche of the masses. In showing the terrible conditions under which people lived, Blake has attempted to reform society.

The “mind-forg’d manacles” that had oppressed the people’s mentality from spiritual freedom and happiness are critically assessed by the poet. Some of these manacles, he believes, are the moral and religious sanctions exerted by the organized Church. As an institution from which Blake is alienated, it is given the condemning label of “black’ning” which demonstrates the Church’s corruption of God. Where Blake believed that God was a loving and benevolent being, the Church has used Him as a device to suppress the people. It has advocated that everyone should accept their suffering with the promise of a reward in paradise. It has also condoned the exploitation of child labour“the Chimney-sweeper’s cry.” Both actions are shown to be opposite to the original Christian message of love for all and charity for the poverty-stricken.

The last stanza gives the final emphasis on the bleakest image of oppression and alienation. The joys of procreation and maternal love are horrifyingly lacking in this scene where a young prostitute, stripped of her youthful innocence, gives birth to an unwanted child. Forced into this vocation, her life of hardship and misery reverses society’s image of a prostitute as a shameless, seductive woman. Her plight is terrible as is the Infant’s whose innocence and purity will soon be tainted in this dark, loveless world. Their alienation from the Church is signified in the last words – “… blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.” Marriage, a ceremony conducted by the religious order, is only for the privileged. A symbol of eternal love and joy, the Harlot is barred from these for life. Hence, for her and the majority of the marginalised, these concepts are dead.

“And the hapless Soldier’s sigh runs in blood down Palace walls” refers to the French Revolution which began in 1789. Blake has supported the people’s uprising against the Crown, which disempowered those in the Third Estate in France. The middle, working and peasant classes were classified as members of this group, which was thoroughly oppressed by the Second (the aristocracy) and the First (the clergy) Estates. Yet, the Soldier, whose occupation is to defend the monarchy, dies in the mob rebellion. Blake sympathises with his cruel destiny – to have his blood smeared down the very walls he is protecting. The Soldier, as an individual, is not at fault – the system is but he has been sacrificed in the name of change.

In this poem, Blake has, in establishing the general psyche of the masses and the human psyche of an individual (the persona), commented on the developments of society at the time. It reveals the oppression and alienation of the people as important issues in the historical context. The poet had lived in a time of gargantuan changes where the rise of science and rational thought had spawned the Industrial Revolution, which disenfranchised the poorer classes. Not only have these people been socially and economically inhibited, they have also been spiritually restrained by the Church that had corrupted the Christian message. In addition, the French Revolution, though initially supported by the people, now perpetuated strife and death. Blake deplored the great suffering of the people and through “London”  has demonstrated these dark elements of society in order to reform it.

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